


Where the Heart Is

by Lumelle



Series: The Way Things Ought to Be [2]
Category: Ant-Man (2015), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic, Family, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5383322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott comes home from a mission to a quiet apartment. Not an empty one, though.</p><p>It's not bad, coming home to this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asario](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asario/gifts).



> So I saw Ant-Man and, after some sufficient flailing, decided this pairing must happen. [Asario](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Asario) requested Scott coming home to find Sam and Cassie asleep on the couch, and obviously I jumped at that.

It was absolutely quiet when Scott opened the door.

Really, this shouldn't have been a surprise. It was late, certainly well past Cassie's bedtime. If anything, he should have expected silence. Well, he should have, if not for the fact he knew perfectly well his daughter was a menace about going to bed on time if he was still out on a mission.

Not that he was terribly worried, of course. It was rather unlikely anything too menacing could be going on in the middle of the Avengers headquarters.

As he walked further into the small apartment, he caught the low murmur of TV turned low. Following the sound he came to the doorway to the living room. It was dark aside from the glow of the TV screen, which was quiet enough for him to make out the curled up figures on the couch. Cassie was wearing her favorite pajamas, hugging her stuffed toy as she leaned against Sam's chest. By the looks of it both of them were asleep.

Scott smiled, reaching for the light switch. As loathe as he was to break that little tableau, Cassie should have been in her own bed, and Sam would whine about a sore back if he spent too long sleeping like that. Not that Scott was calling him old. Certainly not to his face.

Sam blinked as the lights came on, though Cassie barely stirred in his lap. He tensed almost imperceptibly, one arm curling around Cassie. Then he slowly turned his face to peer up at Scott before relaxing. It was adorable, really. "You're home."

"So it would appear." He walked closer, glancing at the TV. It was showing some kind of a soap that to his knowledge wasn't one of Sam's guilty pleasures, so he reached to turn the screen off. "She give you trouble?"

"No more than usual, really. She wanted to stay up until you came home, but I didn't know how long you'd take, so we compromised and she got to watch TV with me if she put on her pajamas." Sam shrugged a bit. "She didn't last five minutes, but at that point I didn't want to startle her awake again."

"And then you drifted off yourself. Yeah, I know how that goes." He leaned in to pick Cassie up. She was growing big, but for now his superhero training was still keeping him fit enough to make her feel light in his arms. "Thanks for watching her, seriously."

"Hey, no problem." Sam yawned and stretched himself. "Figure I should take some responsibility, given that I already knew you were going to try to get custody when I asked you to join. I know you don't like leaving her with just anyone."

"Yeah, I can be a bit paranoid about that." Not that he doubted the credentials of any of the people working with the Avengers, but, well. He'd heard about Hydra, just like everyone else. He wasn't about to trust his little girl to strangers just because they said they were on his side. "Still, thank you, it's a huge relief when I don't have to worry about her while I'm out. And she likes you, too." Which made Scott happy in more ways than one, but this wasn't the time to discuss that.

"As I said, no problem." Sam stood up now, shaking his head as though to clear it from sleep. "You know we're all happy to help. Might want to think about your options if we're ever all called to the field at the same time, though."

"Believe me, I've been thinking about it." Scott sighed. "The problem is, if there's something that big going on, most of the people I'd trust with her will be either busy with that, or too far to drop her off at a moment's notice." Never mind that he didn't exactly cherish the thought of leaving Cassie with her mother whenever the call came. Not that he doubted Maggie and Paxton's love for her — he'd seen perfectly well just how far Paxton would have gone to protect Cassie — but it would have more or less proved them right about how he wasn't a suitable custodial parent when he was involved in superheroics.

"Well, if something big comes up soon you could always ask Pietro to watch her. He's not going to be cleared for field duty at least for another month, and you know he enjoys playing with her."

Scott snorted as he started carrying Cassie over to her bedroom. "Look, Pietro's a fine kid. I absolutely would trust him with Cassie's life. Hell, I trust him to carry her across the country over to her mother on a regular basis. What I do not trust him with is saying no when my daughter wants to eat nothing but cupcakes for dinner."

"Fair point." Sam trailed after him, his footsteps unnecessarily loud in the otherwise quiet apartment. "I should probably take this opportunity to point out we had fish sticks for dinner."

"Oh?" Scott raised his eyebrows. "Nothing wrong with that, but she's been pretty obsessed with chicken nuggets lately."

"Yes, well, she announced that since chickens are birds and falcons are birds, I shouldn't be eating my own kind. So, fish sticks." Sam grinned. "Your baby girl's got a very interesting way of thinking."

"She's the best." He pressed a small kiss to Cassie's hair. She murmured something in her sleep, too low for him to hear. "One of these days I'll have to teach her falcons are totally superior to chickens, though."

"Well, obviously." Sam chuckled, lingering in the doorway of Cassie's room as Scott took her over to her bed. It was a big thing for a little girl, complete with Avengers bedsheets and an imitation arc reactor as a night light in the middle of the headboard. He'd been somewhat dubious when Tony Stark of all people had promised to furnish the room for him to bring Cassie over, but apparently Tony's ideas of what little girls liked were quite well in line with Cassie's preferences. He wasn't sure if that said more about Tony or Cassie, and didn't really want to consider it in too much detail.

"Good night, sweetie." Cassie murmured something again as Scott tucked her in, hugging her toy close to his chest. Scott gave her another kiss and then straightened himself, turning to look over to the doorway. Sam was grinning, and Scott lifted his eyebrows. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing." Sam shrugged, the grin still on his face. "You're really good with her, you know."

"I try." And he would keep trying, for as long as Cassie let him. He wasn't going to mess this up again, not if he could help it. "For some reason she's decided I'm her hero. What else can I do but try to live up to it?"

"Point, point." Sam stepped aside as Scott walked up to the door. "You know, we talked about being a hero today. Cassie and I, that is."

"Oh? And what did she have to say about that?"

"Oh, this and that. You know, her father's awesome, and I'm awesome, and all the Avengers are awesome. Apparently she's also going to be a hero when she grows up."

"Is she, now?" A part of him desperately wanted to see that happen, while another part dreaded the idea of his little princess putting herself in danger. Hey, he'd never claimed not to be a hypocrite. "And what kind of a hero would she be?"

"See, Cassie says she's going to be exactly like you, except she's going to get bigger instead of smaller. I tried to tell her that's kind of the opposite of what you do, but she wouldn't listen to sense." Sam gave a dramatic sigh. "Kids these days."

"Well, at least getting bigger is something she can accomplish without any weird science involved." And God, she was getting bigger every day, and seeing that made him both immensely proud and just a little bit terrified.

"I don't think she aims to stop at normal measurements. Don't worry, though, I told her Avengers only accept adult members, so she'll have to be at least eighteen before she can join."

"And how well did that go over?" Scott found himself heading to the kitchen. He was exhausted, yes, but also still too wired up from the mission to go to sleep. Maybe some tea would help him get to sleep.

"About as well as can be expected. She declared that doesn't count since she's going to be so big anyway, and claimed you need someone to look after you when you're out fighting. Apparently she wouldn't believe me when I said the Avengers look after each other."

"Well, to be fair, I have been doing a lot of solo missions." It kind of came with the territory when his expertise was getting into places he shouldn't have been without anyone noticing. "Not that she needs to know that, of course."

"Of course." Sam nodded, settling himself to lean against the counter as Scott started fussing with making tea. "How did it go, anyway? I know I'll hear the general points later, but is there anything you feel like telling me right now?"

"Pretty standard, really." Scott shrugged, taking out two cups. "I went in, found the data, I came back out. The memory circuits Tony installed in the suit worked perfectly even through all the size changes, so getting the data out with me was pretty trivial. Did get surprised by a guard at one point, but I took care of that pretty easily."

"Oh?" And Sam was grinning, now, Scott knew that even without looking. "Did you show your face and introduce yourself?"

"Hey, now, I don't do that with all my opponents." He flashed Sam his best charming smile. "Only the cute ones." And, yeah, he'd probably still be hearing about that on his deathbed. What could he say? Being face to face with the object of a frankly embarrassing crush did bad things to his thinking processes.

"I suppose I should count myself lucky, then." Sam stepped closer, now, settling one hand at Scott's back. "Besides, it did help me make sure I had the right guy when I tracked you down later."

"I could say something about how unhealthy it is to hunt down someone who beat you up just to offer them a job, but I really don't think I should be complaining."

"Eh, I know I'm tougher than you anyway." Sam leaned in to press a kiss to his neck, and yeah, Scott rather liked that. "Besides, the fight was a pretty good interview. Wanda and Pietro did a lot worse to the old team and we hired them, too."

"Okay, so it's the entire team culture that's messed up and not just you. That's very comforting. Tell me why I signed up for this, again?"

"Because it pays the bills and makes your daughter proud and involves a lot of good-looking people all day, every day?" Sam smiled against his skin. "Oh, and you get to save the world, too. That's also happening."

"You do present a rather compelling argument, Mr. Wilson." Scott hummed a bit. "Stay the night?"

"I think I don't have a choice, really. I'm far too tired to make it all the way to my own rooms."

"Oh, I know. Crossing the corridor is such a hardship sometimes."

All in all, it was a good night. A successful mission with nothing worse than a couple of bruises to worry about, Cassie safely in bed, and some very pleasant company to help conquer his evening tea and then the cold, vast expanse of his empty bed.

If he woke up in the morning to find that Cassie had climbed into his bed at some point during the night and quite happily wedged herself between them, a leg thrown over Scott and an arm half across Sam's face, well, at least she wasn't that big just yet.


End file.
